Federal funds for each uni student to fall

Gillard government figures show federal funding for each university student will decline over the next four years in real terms, despite previous claims it would increase even with the new efficiency dividend taken into account.

The government had argued average per-place funding would rise from $18,000 in 2013 to more than $18,100 in 2017 using today's dollars and had even distributed a graph on social media to back its case.

Figures from Tertiary Education Minister Craig Emerson's office show only the average student contribution will increase in real terms. Photo: Louise Kennerley

But those figures include both federal funding and the student contribution.

A new government breakdown provided to Fairfax Media shows the average Commonwealth contribution will decline slightly from $10,600 this year to $10,500 in 2017 in today's dollars.

The figures from Tertiary Education Minister Craig Emerson's office show only the average student contribution will increase in real terms, from $7400 to $7600, over the same four-year period.

The revelation comes as 1000 academics signed an open letter to the Gillard government demanding it abandon its plan to save $2.3 billion from the university sector.

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The letter, organised by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), says the cuts came after previous decisions to chop research funding and teaching support, and mean Labor has taken more than $4 billion out of its promised spending.

''Universities have made by far and away the largest saving contributions of any federal budget line item,'' the letter states.

Murdoch University professor David Hill, one of the letter signatories, said the quality of Australia's university education was the most important factor in the country's future prosperity.

''If we are to compete effectively in the 21st century we need to be prepared to make at least same proportions of public investment in education as the OECD and put in by the leading economies of our region,'' he said on Wednesday.

An efficiency dividend on university funding is part of the savings package devised to fund the Gonski school reforms. Annual indexation is forecast to be at least 3 per cent in coming years but this will be pared back thanks to an efficiency dividend of 2 per cent in 2014 and 1.25 per cent in 2015.

Senator Rhiannon said the amount students would ultimately pay through HECS-HELP should have been excluded. ''The figures should be based only on public funding,'' she said. ''He [Dr Emerson] had a bad news story and he tried to sell it using rubbery figures and now we've been able to see that's been quite deceptive.''

Dr Emerson's spokesman dismissed the criticism, arguing the total amount available to educate each student was most important.

Dr Emerson said on Tuesday the already announced measures were ''manageable'' and the burden of budget savings must ''be fairly shared across the community''.

It is the second time this week that government figures have been called into question. Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor's office was unable to point to specific evidence to back up his claim on Sunday that 457 visas may have been used illegitimately more than 10,000 times.